Juz 4

A juz (plural ajza), also called a para in South Asia, is one of thirty roughly equal divisions of the written Quran. The division is made by length rather than by meaning, so a juz usually begins and ends in the middle of a surah; each is further split into two hizb and each hizb into quarters. Reciting one juz a night completes the whole Quran across a lunar month, a rhythm tied above all to Ramadan, when the entire text is recited in the nightly tarawih prayers. This portion spans Al-i-Imran 3:93 through An-Nisa 4:23. The remainder of Al-i-Imran reflects on the Battle of Uhud and steadfastness under trial, before An-Nisa ('The Women') begins with the rights of orphans, the shares of inheritance, and the degrees of kinship that bar marriage.

The Battle of Uhud, fought in 3 AH against the Meccan Quraysh and ending less than decisively for the Muslim side after archers left their post, is the event Al-i-Imran's later verses in this juz are traditionally read as reflecting on, offering theological reassurance and instruction after a military reversal rather than a victory, a pattern of scripture responding directly to lived history that recurs across the Medinan surahs. An-Nisa, which the juz then opens, is one of the longest sustained legal passages in the Quran, and its verses on inheritance shares became, through later juristic elaboration, the foundation of the whole discipline of Islamic inheritance law, ilm al-fara'id.

Juz 4 finishes the second half of Al-i-Imran, one hundred and eight verses covering the aftermath of the Battle of Uhud, before opening An-Nisa and carrying only its first twenty-three of one hundred and seventy-six verses, a small fraction of that surah. The imbalance is typical of how juz boundaries fall wherever the accumulated text reaches roughly a thirtieth of the whole, regardless of where a surah's own argument happens to end.

In communities that pace the nightly tarawih prayers of Ramadan at one juz per night, this is customarily the fourth night's portion, though many mosques recite faster to finish early in the month or slower to spread the reading further, and some congregations instead divide the whole Quran among thirty reciters for a single collective khatm. Huffaz reviewing memorised portions often pace themselves by a juz's two hizb and four quarter-hizb divisions rather than by surah, since these evenly sized units make a consistent daily review schedule possible regardless of where a surah boundary falls. Printed Mushafs typically mark each juz's opening in the margin with a small medallion inscribed with its number, a page-level convention distinct from the finer hizb and quarter-hizb marks placed within the text itself to guide reciters mid-portion.